There's a part of the brain that enables us to perceive magnitude -- we can compare loudness when hearing different tones or compare the number of dots in a group at a glance. Neuroscientists have ...

When elementary students experience math through multiple modes, they begin to see it as a language of design, rhythm, and ...

This jingle has helped generations of algebra students recall the quadratic formula that solves every equation of the form $latex ax^2+bx+c=0$. The formula is as ...

To begin to understand what mathematicians and physicists see in the abstract structures of symmetries, let’s start with a familiar shape. We are fond of saying things are symmetric, but what does ...

Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens. Symmetry also has an aesthetic meaning, although this is ...

Non-parametric procedures, based on the empirical characteristic function, are proposed for estimating the centre δ of a symmetric distribution and for testing the hypothesis of symmetry around an ...

Several fields of mathematics have developed in total isolation, using their own 'undecipherable' coded languages. Mathematicians now present 'big algebras,' a two-way mathematical 'dictionary' ...

A complex form of mathematical symmetry linked to string theory has been glimpsed in the real world for the first time, in laboratory experiments on exotic crystals. Mathematicians discovered a ...